(Vienna, 30 November 2017) Mir Alireza Hoda from the Department of Surgery, MedUni Vienna/Vienna General Hospital and member of the Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC) was elected as the new leader of the "Thoracic Malignancies" Working Group at the annual conference of the Austrian Society of Surgical Oncology (ACO-ASSO).
Malignant diseases of the thorax include lung cancers (bronchial carcinomas), cancers of the mesothelium (mesotheliomas), cancers of the thymus gland (thymomas), germ-cell tumours and lymphomas. In order to improve patient care in Austria and to drive research forward on an international level, ACO-ASSO set up a working group and elected Mir Alireza Hoda to head it up for a three-year term. This makes him one of the youngest ACO-ASSO Working Group leaders and a member of the extended Board.
His main aims are to raise awareness of thoracic cancers, to encourage the implementation of multi-centre clinical studies into thoracic malignancies, to establish multimodal treatment concepts and draw up treatment guidelines for the different types of thoracic cancer and update existing guidelines.
"I see my new role as a great opportunity for advancing progress in the treatment of thoracic malignancies. It is therefore important to me to make my colleagues aware that the treatment of these diseases must centre around multimodal treatment concepts; moreover, I would like to intensify study activities in this field in Austria," says the thoracic surgeon, outlining his goals.
About Mir Alireza Hoda
Mir Alireza Hoda was born in Teheran and came to Austria as a refugee. He completed his medical studies at the Medical University of Vienna in 2006 with a dissertation on "Adipocytokines and bariatric surgery" at the Department of Surgery. Following a six-month internship at Vienna Military Hospital, Hoda transferred to MedUni Vienna, where he worked as transplant coordinator for the Division of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery at the Department of Surgery. In 2009, he started his specialist training to become a thoracic surgeon, working in parallel as a researcher on the Vienna lung transplant programme and at MedUni Vienna's Institute of Cancer Research (PhD on the "Malignant Diseases" programme since 2012).
After completing his specialist training in March 2016, he finished his PhD in 2017, gaining his postdoctoral qualification in surgery. Since September 2017, he has been working as a senior doctor in the Division of Thoracic Surgery and Thoracic Endoscopy, Ruhrlandklinik in Essen, where he is spending his year abroad as part of his qualification agreement.
Between 2009 and 2017, Hoda has obtained several research grants and received numerous awards and prizes. He gives specialist lectures at home and abroad. In addition to this, he is a member of numerous professional societies.
About ACO-ASSO
The Austrian Society of Surgical Oncology (ACO ASSO) comprises various working groups, each dedicated to a specific malignancy. The working groups are made up of surgeons as ordinary members and representatives of other disciplines (such as medical oncology, radiotherapy, pathology, etc.) as extraordinary members.
The Society is therefore a competent point of contact on matters of oncology, with the declared aim of increasing the level of knowledge and operating standards in surgical cancer treatment in Austria. Furthermore, the Society aims to standardise treatment throughout the country, based on the very latest knowledge, and to support the implementation of national and international trials. Link: https://www.aco-asso.at/